This issue of WORLD'S FINEST COMICS was another book that I borrowed from my grade school friend Donald Sims to read. I'm almost certain that it wasn't the lead story that made we want to experience it but rather the back-up reprint story. But we'll get there. At this time, WORLD'S FINEST COMICS had transitioned … Continue reading BC: WORLD’S FINEST COMICS #211
It was the horror comics that made EC's reputation, both for good and for ill, and they remained the firm's best-sellers all the way up until the nascent Comics Code put them out of business. Readers were attracted to EC's style in general, but it was in the horror comics, where the bounds of good … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #7
To a very great degree, most of the assorted EC anthology titles resembled one another. The only difference between them was genre. So WEIRD FANTASY ran the same sorts of shock ending stories that SHOCK SUSPENSTORIES did, however theirs were played out against a science fiction background. The same was true of THE HAUNT OF … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #6
SHAZAM #3 was another issue in the complete run of the title that I had borrowed to read from my grade school friend Donald Sims. That's a nice cover in the spirit of a number of Fawcett pieces spotlighting the Marvel Family. It's only undone by how chunky all of the linework seems to be. … Continue reading BC: SHAZAM #3
EC's science fiction titles were the weak link in the publishing line at least from a sales point of view. They never performed at much beyond a break-even level. But publisher Bill Gaines liked them, and so he kept them running regardless, using capital from his more profitable titles to underwrite them. Gaines was rightly … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #5
By far the best-selling titles in the well-regarded EC Comics line of the early 1950s were the company's horror books. Horror was a big genre during this time, and nobody in the field did it better than EC. As with their other offerings, their horror comics were story-driven and literate, with high-quality artwork throughout. These … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #4
If there's ever a competition to determine the single most batshit crazy issue of a comic book released during the Bronze Age of Comics, this issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN has a real fighting chance to take the title. Just the cover alone gives you a tiny sample of the absurd and operatic events that are … Continue reading BC: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #131
So it was around this time that I ordered a set of EC Classic Reprints from the Superhero Merchandise catalog. I wasn't in any way a fan of the mystery/horror series that were then coming out, mostly from DC. But I had read about the heyday of EC in the pages of THE COMIC-BOOK BOOK … Continue reading BHOC: EC CLASSIC REPRINTS #3
This next issue of UNCANNY X-MEN was a bit of a favorite of mine, possibly down to the fact that the central villain of the piece, Arcade, was a bit closer in tone and spirit to the Flash's rogues gallery members than most Marvel villains. The series had been steadily rising in my estimation, and … Continue reading BHOC: UNCANNY X-MEN #123
As I mentioned previously, my grade school friend Donald Sims possessed a complete 35 issue run of SHAZAM, the DC Comics revival of the original Captain Marvel of the Golden Age of Comics published in the 1970s. At one point, I convinced Don to let me borrow the run so that I could read it … Continue reading BC: SHAZAM #2
The Tom Brevoort Experience 